Project Teams

First Portion of the New SIS Launches

The GeneSIS project team is pleased to announce the launch of the first portion of RIT’s new enterprise student information system (SIS). Today RIT’s scheduling officers will begin using the new SIS to build the Fall 2012 course catalog and schedule of classes. Although scheduling officers will be the only users immediately impacted by the first launch of the new SIS, this is a significant first step and the system’s functionality will continue to grow quickly with four additional releases scheduled over the next year.

The project team began configuring the new SIS in January 2011 and has been working at a rapid pace rarely attempted by other universities. The project team is building a more centralized, efficient system with new tools that will help ease the transition to semesters in 2013 and will support students’ academic success throughout their time at RIT. The system is being built through the collaborative efforts of ITS, our partners at Oracle Consulting Services, and representatives from key functional areas from Student Affairs, Academic Affairs, Enrollment Management & Career Services, and Finance & Administration.

Joe Loffredo, RIT Registrar and Doug Hausner, Senior Associate Registrar led the configuration of this first launch of the new SIS. “The new system will introduce many new features and functionality for the scheduling officers and academic departments to explore,” says Loffredo. “Now there is the ability to automatically enroll students in a corresponding lab or studio when they sign up for a lecture. Departments can have waitlists for classes that reach capacity and determine how students are filled in as spots open. Students will be able to search for classes based on certain attributes, such as whether a class will fill a general education requirement. In the legacy system there are five different ways to search the class schedule and in the future we will only need one. Integrated room scheduling within the SIS will replace our current independent system, by the summer. Also, once RIT transitions to semesters the system can be configured for automatic prerequisite and co-requisite checking for many classes.”

In preparation for the system launch, the scheduling officers have each spent over 50 hours with GeneSIS project leads training to use the new SIS. “Our training staff has been awesome” says Teresa Merritt, RIT scheduling officer. “They’ve been working with us as a group, in one-on-one settings, and have involved us with testing throughout to get us used to the system and ready for this big change.”

In December the RIT community will be able to access the Fall 2012 schedule of classes and course catalog built in the new SIS by the scheduling officers. The project team will also launch portions of the system that will help RIT’s three admissions offices recruit the freshman class of 2013 and the new SIS will be linked to RIT’s financial aid system, ProSAM. The majority of the RIT community will begin to use the system in April 2012 for Fall 2012 class registration. The project team will also complete configuration of the student financials components of the new SIS in spring, and students will be able to access their student financials accounts in July.

In June the SIS will gain new tools to help advisors support students in their progress towards their degrees. The final GeneSIS project launch will occur in September 2012 when we release an integrated degree audit tool that will allow RIT students to check their progress towards graduation in real time. For each launch there will be extensive training for the functional users and for the end user population to ensure the RIT community is well-equipped to adopt the new system. Click here for a high level project timeline.

The new SIS was built through a collaborative effort that brought together partners from across RIT. The GeneSIS project team has worked to keep the campus engaged by meeting with such key groups as Student Government, Academic Senate, and Staff Council. Additionally, they established a Change Agent Network of over 50 students, faculty, staff, and administrators from across the campus that meets monthly to ensure their constituents are kept up to date with the project’s progress and understand how the new system will impact members of the RIT community directly. We encourage you to direct your input about the project through these groups.